October 14, 2011

"Obviously not everyone at the 'Occupy' protests is an anti-Semite, but the fact that these statements and views fit so neatly into the whole anti-banker milieu, and often go completely unchallenged by fellow protesters, should give everyone cause for concern about where this whole movement is heading."

224 comments:

By the way, you won't really get an "occupy" Los Angeles. For the same reason Los Angeles is UNLIKE New York.

New York has a system of buses and trains that can get you anywhere without having to own a car.

Los Angeles doesn't "collect." It actually SPREADS OUT. So, if you want people to "get together" ... they'll be running into the Hollywood gay crowd. Which does have bath houses. Maybe, these kids won't get as dirty?

The Jewish "shtick" is just to get publicity. Or they'd have to invite the pope.

I gotta disagree here. In the first place, you are bound to attract crazies in public protests of this kind. But more to the point, the bankers do bare a disproportionate amount of responsibility for our economic crisis, and a disproportionate number of them are Jewish -- or, rather, Ashkenazi. One of the problems in our society for the past 30 years is that that too many members of this influential part of our elite has lost contact with -- and holds unfounded prejudices against, --the gentile majority in our country that makes its living with its hands and its feet.

And not just the bankers. Top economists too, as in Paul Samuelson and Larry Summers and others who have sold our leading politicians on the idea that free trade is good for America, when what they mean is that it is good for them (though not really) and good for the state. GDP and not the happiness and well-being of the American people has become the measure of policy, and Ashkenazi Americans bear a disproportionate share of the responsibility for this development.

I think they are being foolish, naively foolish, if only because they are endangering America's long-term popular support for the state of Israel.

Bottom line: I wish they would change sides. The people in the U.S. who make their livings with their hands and their feet need someone to stand up for their interests. Noriel Roubini and George Soros are starting to see the light, as is that "socialist" senator from Vermont, what is his name?

To give voice to the voiceless, the weak, the defenseless has always been the real strength of the organized American Jewish community and the tradition they represent. They can come around again.

I don't know why anyone would even pretend to be surprised by this. When times get tough, Jews always get blamed. After 2,000 years, it's a genetically transmitted neural pathway.

By the way, Carol Herman, you're taking this too literally. Eric Garcetti, president of the L.A. City Council--and, most important, an announced candidate to replace Villaraigosa as mayor--told the protesters that they can stay in the park as long as they like. And the park is easily accessible from anywhere in Socal by subway.

I'm willing to believe that the OWS antisemites are fringies. This does not exonerate the left from their virtually unanimous stand for Palestinian terrorists and against democratic Israel. They have adopted this stance because it is the anti-American stance. Period.

People who hold negative views of bankers are now receiving the same treatment that people received some years ago for criticizing the Neocons, by definition they must be anti-Semites. This is a disgusting line of argumentation.

Are all the revisionist Republicans that no longer support the Iraq war also antiSemitic?

It is a cheap, valueless shot, the last resort of those truly bereft of any legitimate argument.

A large fraction of the OccupyWallStreet protesters in New York are Jewish, as was the case with the protests against the Iraq war. Are the anti-OccupyWallStreet agitators anti-Semitic? I ask, you decide.

A "Reasonable" Man, did you go to the link and see some of the crap there?

Or are you one of those reasonable men who draws a sharp line of distinction between antisemites, and reasonable people who merely want to see the filty Jews driven into the sea by the righteous Palestinian freedom fighters?

That is, such reasonable people aren't antisemitic; they're just anti-Zionist. Is that what you're saying?

Niall Ferguson was given access to the correspondence and ledgers of the early 19th century Rothschilds. Their wealth and religion attracted a great number of paranoid theories about their ulterior motives. It should come as no surprise that the Rothschilds acted to further their own self interest. However, it should also be noted that their self interest led them to support constitutional monarchies, peace, and stable bond prices. The sharp variance between what the Rothschilds actually did and what they were accused of plotting is very stark indeed.....The munition makers did not cause WWI any more than the tulip brokers engineered tulipmania in Holland. Some of the bankers found a way to profit off the housing bubble, and some did not. Some of the Jews who made money in real estate invested their profits with Bernie Madoff. You can be one step ahead of the next guy, but there's no guarantee that you're walking in the right direction.

Althouse increasingly throwing in with those pretending to be intrigued, or some such rot, by the alleged presence of "anti-Semitism at these rallies. It's so stupid that it merits no response.

All the usual suspects mock and deride the OWS people for not having a cogent set of alternatives put forward yet. Or for not presenting a unified front. Or for not being "presentable," or other inane evaluative lenses.

What most of you do not seem to get (or more likely, don't want to get), is that what is needed now is a simple raising of awareness. That there is an elite class of corporate and banker suits who continue to wreak incredible damage, chuckling all the way to the bank whilst morons call these blights of human skin "job creators," and screech for "less government" and "less regulation."

That's what needs to come first. And that's what's happening right now, like it or not.

The raising of awareness of who the destroyers, the leeches really are. And Wall Street is absolutely perfect as a metonym for the whole lot of em. Once more and more people come to see how despicable these people are, then we can really start gertting into the business of what to do about it.

The American banking system is run by crooks, if you want to be charitable. By wholly indecent human beings, if you want to be realistic. It doesn't matter a whit whether these figures are Jewish, Christian, Atheist, or Dallas Cowboy fans. What matters is that people see them for the slime they are.

An interesting thing about anti-Semitism is how absolutely different it is from other forms of bias and discrimination. For most other forms, like racism or classism or sexism, the basis for the discrimination has to do with perceptions of inferiority.

Anti-Semitism, on the other hand, very rarely has that as a basis. Instead, very cogent arguments are made about how nefarious the Jews are, holding power, controlling, scheming. The anti-Semite feels inferior to the Jew, and so strikes out to restore 'balance'.

The great trouble with this is that anti-Semitism is almost always tied in with some other kind of crusade, whether for the poor, or the outcast, or the deprived. And very often through history, politicians have encouraged the explicit or implicit anti-semitism because it focuses on the Jewish people as the "other", while taking the attention off of the politicians who are the real source of the corruption at hand.

Bankers becoming the target is a pretty clear historic tendency, that certainly echoes past anti-semitic movements, and absolutely reflects the same kind of distraction that politicians want to encourage. No wonder the Democratic leadership applauds this.

Instead of politicians, who in a democracy are the rightful receivers of public ire, the anger is against the nameless and generalized "Wall St.", that bastion of indeterminate evils who I hear like to eat Christian children.

But all the "Jewish people are pretty anti-Jewish themselves" talk here reminds me of that quote by Bierce on misogyny that can be paraphrased: "An anti-semite is a person who hates Jews as much as Jews hate themselves."

So the OWS folks will have the same nagging problems with rogue participants who say borderline or actual anti-semitic things that the Tea Party folks have with rogue participants who say-borderline or actual racist things. Meh.

Maybe we should root for them to have the same effect on the Democratic Party that the Tea Party may have on the Republican Party.

garage, I am going with option one you present. OWS will end up helping the GOP. Now lefty protests elsewhere may truely be dangerous, but not this Vegan fueled bunch. They are just dirty and annoying. OWS, keep up the good work.

After all, if those signs were at a Tea Party event, the MSM would be all over the anti-semitism angle. MSM says the Tea Party is racist, and I dont think I have ever seen any racist sign at an event, except a picture of O'bama.

traditionalguy said... Jews are not the only bankers. Get a clue.

The credit bubble was not put into place by tricky Jewish Bankers. The last time I looked Bush II was an Episcopalian attending a Methodist Church.

I'd argue that Clinton, Cuomo, Dood, Raines, Johnson and Frank along with the CRA are the proximate cause.

Of them, that's likely 2 Baptists, 2 Catholics, a Lutheran, and a Jew.

don't know why anyone would even pretend to be surprised by this. When times get tough, Jews always get blamed. After 2,000 years, it's a genetically transmitted neural pathway.

By the way, Carol Herman, you're taking this too literally. Eric Garcetti, president of the L.A. City Council--and, most important, an announced candidate to replace Villaraigosa as mayor--told the protesters that they can stay in the park as long as they like. And the park is easily accessible from anywhere in Socal by subway.

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It doesn't just happen to Jews, it happens to what are called "market dominant minorities" everywhere. The Indians in Kenya, the whites in Zimbabwe, and the Jews in Europe were all market dominant minorities, with disproportinate wealth compared to the majority. That sort of situation tends to go bad as the majority becomes envious.

Pastafarian, your name mocks Christians, Jews, African Americans, all people of faith.

You are not just anti-Semitic, you are attacking the faiths of all religious people. No doubt you feel that you are expressing a legitimate skepticism of religious views. Nonetheless, if I take this one fact, your name, in isolation and expand on it in bad faith, like Althouse’s postings of the OWS crowd, you look mighty prejudiced.

There are legitimate arguments against the ever expanding power of the financial industry in the U.S. My view is that financial services and legal services have become increasingly parasitic on the real economy. The self serving inefficiencies in these industries act as a very large tax on the people that actually produce useful goods and services.

If you want to support the goals and aspirations of the financial industry, knock yourself out, but I suspect you won’t get many takers in the general community.

So the OWS folks will have the same nagging problems with rogue participants who say borderline or actual anti-semitic things that the Tea Party folks have with rogue participants who say-borderline or actual racist things. Meh.

There are legitimate arguments against the ever expanding power of the financial industry in the U.S. My view is that financial services and legal services have become increasingly parasitic on the real economy. The self serving inefficiencies in these industries act as a very large tax on the people that actually produce useful goods and services.

If you want to support the goals and aspirations of the financial industry, knock yourself out, but I suspect you won’t get many takers in the general community.

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You don't have to be for the goals and aspirations of the financial industry(all though thats mighty vague) to view the OWS crowd as the bunch of violent, hateful, anti-semitic commie assholes they are.

It was principled conservatives that gave opposition to TARP, both during the Bush and Obama administrations. We believe in the free market which accepts the possibility of failure.

Pastafarian, your name mocks Christians, Jews, African Americans, all people of faith.

You are not just anti-Semitic, you are attacking the faiths of all religious people. No doubt you feel that you are expressing a legitimate skepticism of religious views. Nonetheless, if I take this one fact, your name, in isolation and expand on it in bad faith, like Althouse’s postings of the OWS crowd, you look mighty prejudiced.

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lol total weaksauce

Comparing a quirky handle to anti-semites... your argument is in bad faith, you got that right at least.

traditionalguy, the argument you present to support your view that Jews can be anti-Semites is ridiculous. Like every grouping of people, Jews are highly factionalized. That some Jews think other Jews are acting stupidly, or are just flat out evil, doesn’t make them anti-Semitic. You highlight the ridiculousness of your argument by stating that atheists born into Christian families are anti-Christs.

By this line of reasoning, Saudi’s who reject the interpretation of Islam most favored in their country are reprehesible Islamophobes.

traditionalguy, the argument you present to support your view that Jews can be anti-Semites is ridiculous. Like every grouping of people, Jews are highly factionalized. That some Jews think other Jews are acting stupidly, or are just flat out evil, doesn’t make them anti-Semitic. You highlight the ridiculousness of your argument by stating that atheists born into Christian families are anti-Christs.

By this line of reasoning, Saudi’s who reject the interpretation of Islam most favored in their country are reprehesible Islamophobes.

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So you entirely reject the liberal interpretation of the existence of the self-hating minority - the "Uncle Tom"? Hilarious.

SPImmortal said...It was principled conservatives that gave opposition to TARP, both during the Bush and Obama administrations.………………………………………

Only someone arguing in a purely partisan fashion would ignore the fact that a lot of people on the left where not that keen on the bailouts either. In fact this is one area where people on the left and right, outside of mainstream politics, have considerable common ground.

Hi folks, just thought I’d put my head in and say “sholem-aleykhem” Just thought someone with the Joo-ish tag ought to stop in….I’m surprised Cedarford hasn’t stopped by, yet, guess there’s a Party meeting or making fire bombs.

I don’t think OWS is “anti-Semitic”…no more so than the usual run-of-mill Progressive Movement, sure it’s Pro-Palestinian…I’m sure that the Likudniks in the US Government are excoriated, and “Bibi” Netanyahu is a figure of evil, but that’s pretty much par for the course, these days. A few morons with signs doesn’t mean Cedarford or “J” have taken over the “OWS Movement.”

I will say it’s funny to see someone complain about “Jewish Bankers” and the Ashkenazim. By-and-large the Ashkenazim that came to the US were poor, semi-literate farmers, traders, and peddlers from the Settlements of the Pale and Poland. It was their hard work and dedication, plus a reverence for formal education that made them so disproportionately “professional.” And so having come from such humble beginnings it’s fun to hear people complain about their/our status…It’s an American Success Story, akin to the Japanese and Vietnamese and Koreans…OH Wait, they aren’t popular either. OH well please continue on…I’ll just sit and listen…have a knish or some latke *YUM*

BTW, this does not mean that the Occupy (Insert City Here) aren’t idiots, merely that they aren’t, primarily Anti-Semites.

SPImmortal said...It was principled conservatives that gave opposition to TARP, both during the Bush and Obama administrations.………………………………………

Only someone arguing in a purely partisan fashion would ignore the fact that a lot of people on the left where not that keen on the bailouts either. In fact this is one area where people on the left and right, outside of mainstream politics, have considerable common ground.

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That's a convienent claim for you, seeing as how the general liberal on the street sentiment in regards to TARP cannot be measured one way or the other.

But what can be known is that Republicans offered the only significant resistance to TARP. Maybe the OWS turds, if they had brains in their heads, should be voting Republican.

well assuming the majority of bankers/financiers are jews--say 75%--in urban areas the # may be higher--..maybe you can connect the dots. Probably not

Party Meeting must be over or it’s break time at Jack-in-the-Box…so you claim that 75% of the “urban bankers” are Jewish…OK, got any proof, and proof means more than saying “Finklestein” or “Goldschmidt”…it would involve statistics and demographic information, a definition of “urban banker”, “Jew” and then a reliable set of data points demonstrating that “75%” of “Urban bankers” were “jews”…please produce these data points.

Joey Dreckberg----even a dimwitted meshugginah such as yrself must admit the jewish are overrepresented in certain areas--ie finance,academia,entertainment-- given that they are on 3-4% of the US pop, but say in finance probably 75% of employees ,or more. OR on the other hand maybe you can't--logic not included in the Chosen's usual skill set.

Sorry, but Left or Right, if you opposed TARP "on principle," you're an idiot. You can quibble with how it was executed, but saying it's a Liberal or Conservative 'principle' to allow the entire American, and by extension global, banking system to collapse is absurd. Reading about the effects of global bank failures in the late-Nineteenth/early-Twentieth Centuries convinced me that there is almost no cost too high to prevent such an outcome--even if it means bailing out poorly managed car makers and their slothful unions in the process.

These poor sad fools who make up the majority of the occupy herd should be angry. They're being used. (And they're not going to get anything back in return.) They've been groomed for this; raised and fattened on a steady diet of half-truths and outright lies, and never ever taught to think critically or honestly. They've been taught what, not how, to think. They sense that they're being used but they are completely unequipped intellectually to figure out how. Accordingly, they rage sanctimoniously about various ancient grievances and recycled conspiracy theories, including the usual disgraceful (and very poorly-disguised) bed-wetting about Jews. It's no coincidence that if you scratch a Truther you will find an anti-semite. This is today's Democratic Party.

Sorry, but Left or Right, if you opposed TARP "on principle," you're an idiot. You can quibble with how it was executed, but saying it's a Liberal or Conservative 'principle' to allow the entire American, and by extension global, banking system to collapse is absurd. Reading about the effects of global bank failures in the late-Nineteenth/early-Twentieth Centuries convinced me that there is almost no cost too high to prevent such an outcome--even if it means bailing out poorly managed car makers and their slothful unions in the process.

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TARP didn't prevent any collapse, it merely postponed it. There is too much debt, both public and private, and a severe retrenchment is inevitable.

When history is written, the quention will not be "Did the bank bailout avert a depression?", the question will be "Did the bailouts make the depression better/worse?"

Joey Dreckberg----even a dimwitted meshugginah such as yrself must admit the jewish are overrepresented in certain areas--ie finance,academia,entertainment-- given that they are on 3-4% of the US pop,Didn’t say that we weren’t……I gave you a reason for it, though….hard work, religiously inspired and culturally enforced…and a reverence for formal education.but say in finance probably 75% of employees ,or more.THIS was where parted ways my little sturmbannfuhrer…I asked for “proof” you just give me “Claims”…so define “Urban banker”, define “Jew”, and then produce some evidence that Urban bankers are 75% Jewish…Because Rick Santelli, “Father of the TEA Party” is obviously NOT a good example of the Chosen People in Finance.OR on the other hand maybe you can't--logic not included in the Chosen's usual skill set

Actually it IS, it’s why we prospered in Theology, Finance, Law and Academe….the person who seems to lack logic in their tool box is you, but that’s the topic of another thread, no doubt.

The main consideration of those in power when the financial crisis hit wasn't "What's the best way out of this?", it was "Please down let me be the one in charge when the shit hits the fan!" That's what led to TARP and what's fueling the endless and comical bailouts for the PIIGS.

TARP didn't prevent any collapse, it merely postponed it. There is too much debt, both public and private, and a severe retrenchment is inevitable.

Get back to me when that inevitable retrenchment occurs. You're in the same category as Global Warming alarmists or End of Days fundamentalists. "It didn't happen when we expected--but it will happen very, very soon! Be prepared!"

a reliable set of data points demonstrating that “75%” of “Urban bankers” were “jews”…

already been done, numerous times, Einstein. And I said in " some areas"--across the US probably lower. At any rate far exceeding their # in the pop--3-4%.. ..or check the make up of the average ivy league university. Now, that doesn't justify violence against semitic people as the hysteria cases like you assume it means, Joey JoanRivers. But it might mean something...like RICO. Like NY financiers-- OR Ho-wood production houses.RICO'd.

Coketown and SPImmortal…I’m a little more “agnostic” on TARP…Coke, SP nails it, when s/he points out that TARP was about saving the bacon-if you’ll allow a Jew a bit of fun, here-of Paulson’s friends and then Geitner’s friends, in the Banker’s Club. Where, I think, you have it right is that given a choice between TARP and nothing, I’d choose TARP. HOWEVER, were there other options available? I don’t know, unlike the “rest of the Jews” I’m not on Wall Street or in a “Counting House.” IF, the investors, to be distinguished from the Bankers, could have been made whole, without TARP, that would have been preferable. TARP helped bankers, and the financial system, in that order, IMO. I don’t know if the Financial System couldn’t have been helped, without TARP.

To be fair, though, folks like SPImmortal need to posit their alternative(s) to TARP. The Depression became a Depression due to bank failures…it became the GREAT Depression due to FDR. So SPI is wrong to simply think “letting the banks fail” was a viable alternative.

Well then my Little Eichmann, you can just produce links to those “studies” can’t you…or at least cite them? And we can RICO religious/ethnic groups now…won’t the Vietnamese Nail Shop Operators be pleased to hear that…or won’t all of Joe Biden’s Indian 7-11 Shop Owners be pleased…”TOO MANY Joos/Vietnamese/Indians HERABOUTS WE’VE GOT TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!” I take it that slackers in mom’s basements aren’t of anyone particular ethnic group, right? Otherwise we’d be RICO’ing you….

The Small Pathetic Voice is showing his/her Lumpenproletariate NSDAP underpinnings…there are certain ethnic groups, which have prospered more than the SPV, and the Power of the State must be used to “level the field” so the SPV, can be made to feel less worthless….

So the SPV wants to RICO:1) Jews2) WASP’s3) Asians (which ones?).They have done better than him/her and it must be due to some unfair secret collaboration and/or handshake…and so My little Heinrich Himmler here, is going to “get even with them.” Dood/Doodette, put down the bong, step away from the Cheetoh’s and just get a job…put in about 50 hours a week for about 15 years, don’t have children (PLEASE DON’T HAVE CHILDREN!) before you can afford them, don’t divorce, if you marry, (Yhwh Help your Spouse)…you do those things an you too will be successful, and some semi-literate slacker, in the basement or at Zucotti Park will hate you, too!

Coke, SP nails it, when s/he points out that TARP was about saving the bacon-if you’ll allow a Jew a bit of fun, here-of Paulson’s friends and then Geitner’s friends, in the Banker’s Club.

I don't buy this. Are you saying TARP was designed, as hastily as it was, with the sole and explicit purpose of preventing Paulson's and Geitner's friends from losing their shirts? Doubtful. I think it was an inevitable consequence of TARP, which is obvious: A package designed to keep banks solvent kept those banks' managers and directors employed. How could it not? But this is very different from what SP says, that TARP was meant to save those bankers' jobs, and preventing the collapse of the world's banking system was just an added benefit.

But I have heard it proposed that any bank accepting TARP assistance should have had its entire board removed. I would have happily agreed to that.

I think I would do well in a Zombie Apocalypse. I would grab supplies laid up and at hand. I would head for high north country (zombies don't like cold, except for those Nazi zombies in Norway). I would hole up in the mountains until the zombies went away.

But I have heard it proposed that any bank accepting TARP assistance should have had its entire board removed. I would have happily agreed to that

Banks had no choice in accepting TARP Funds….so that idea is a non-starter. I don’t mean this in some, conspiratorial sense, of Paulson and Geitner saving only their friends, but rather that the policy choices created and presented BY BANKERS, emphasized saving banks…gee wonder why? The goal ought to have been to save “Assets” and “Liquidity” and “Investors” not bankers…bankers are proxies for those things, but not the thing to be saved. IF there was a way to funnel cash to the depositors, investors, without the intermediary of the banks, that would have been preferable…Lehman is like GM…it may go “bankrupt” but it’s assets don’t disappear, someone would take over the loans, bonds, and buildings….as long as the capital it managed was still there, there was something to work with. And it wasn’t Lehman’s/AIG/BofA money it was the money of the stock-holders and investors, depositors that I want to save…if along the way the bank makes it fine, if not…OH WELL.

HOWEVER, that having been said, I have yet to hear a critic of TARP present an alternative beyond, “Let’em go under.” And I agree, letting them fail, without TARP, was tantamount to telling all the asset holders, “Sorry you’re out of luck and broke.” That would’ve made for a good time…..

Striking it rich in the gold market because you inherited a load of shekels to start with is no different than winning big in roulette. Actually roulette takes a bit more skill--with trading you just hire some broker-panderer. Chinga tu madre,puerco

I think Cedarford is a much more evolved anti-semite than J. Cedarford is aware of his anti-semitism and revels in it. J. thinks his anti semitism is a form of idealism and is in total denial of it. How could someone who voted for Obama be impure in thought, word, or deed. The idea is preposterous. Thank God we have men like J. willing to fight the good fight against the mormozionist conspiracy and those fucking Republican bigots who should all be put in re-education camps and beaten to death if they can't get their heads on straight.

Does the presence of large number of people with Jewish last names mean the Occupy Whatever movement is not anti-Semitic? My answer is no.

A majority of Jews supported Adolph Hitler from August 23, 1939 through June 22, 1941. They supported him because Joseph Stalin told them to. A majority of American's with Jewish last names were Communists in 1939 and are Communists today.

People we identify as Jews will always gravitate to the extreme end of any political movement because they believe if thay can out Communist all other Communists they will be protected from anti-Semitic acts. The fact that this strategy has never worked and still attracts a majority of people of Jewish ancestry never ceases to amaze me.

Two Jewish friends are riding to work on the subway in NY one morning. One man is shocked to see his friend reading a violently anti-Semitic newspaper published by avowed Islamists. He says "How can you read that filth!" His friend says, "I read the NYT, Israel is going to be sanctioned by the UN. Jews in the United States are getting wiped out by assimilation, and intermarriage. I read this newspaper, the Jews control the banks, they secret Zionist councils run all the governments, undercover Mossad operatives pull off daring secret military strikes. It is much more pleasant!!"

We will start with 2008, pre-TARP borders, to be followed with negotiated land swaps. Also, an immediate stop to new settlements. I hear Occupy St. Olaf is imminent

NO WAY…There are some new apartments going condo and we have our eye on one…definitely there can be no freeze on new settlement. I really don’t see occupy Wall Street or Occupy St. Olaf lasting much past the first snowfall…Occupy Sacramento or Occupy Atlanta or Occupy the Hooters Down the Street, could last a little longer….

Striking it rich in the gold market because you inherited a load of shekels to start with is no different than winning big in roulette

You maunder on so..what are you talking about, WHO inherited a “load of shekels”. People on Wall Street, by-and-large haven’t inherited shekels, they invest other people’s shekels….You’re p!ssed some people had more at birth than you, now too? Gee, you ARE a bitter person aren’t you?

Hey Love - I know that Wall Street bankers engage in economic activity which indirectly improves my wealth. These dirty, smelly swine are parasites on the American public. So your reflexive anti-capitalist sentiment just exposes you as the Commie pig you are.

This is what happens when liberalism is allowed to run-amok for 40 years. You get these swine who are protesting FOR bigger government. Rush Limbaugh was right 23 years ago when he came on the air and he's right now. We must continue to mock these degenerate filth.

But by all means - please grind these left-wing cities to a halt. I can sit back in my forested alcove and enjoy the spectacle.

I believe they have the right to protest, just as I believe the Tea Party has the same right

But they DON’T have a “right” to occupy private land, without compensation or assent of the holder, nor do they have the right to assemble without a permit, nor the right to defecate on public property such as police cars….

Joe - I was thinking to myself that the occupation of Zucati Park is the opening shot in the American Bolshevik revolution. If you don't remember, that's what the Soviet ones did. They occupied the factories and landed-estates first, killed the property owners.

Mayor Bloomberg is a disgrace. He has no business being the mayor of a city that refuses to enforce private property rights. New York City is now a Bantustan as far as I'm concerned. New York City turning into a 3rd world hellhole!

you can be against Israel, and indeed HATE Israel without being antisemetic

Sure tell yourself that…just like you told yourself, “You supported the troops, just not the mission.” When you side with anti-Semites, you ARE an anti-Semite…but tell me how you “hate Israel” and how that doesn’t translate into anti-Semitism…because, the Palestinians freely admit that they wish to drive the JEWS into the sea…

For someone constantly representing himself as some kind of real (conservative) American, you appear to miss the point of civil disobedience.

The point is, according to Thoreau, Ghandi (not loved in Occpy Sacramento) or MLK is to spend time in jail…but I don’t think OWS or their ilk understand that…

regarding protests and riots related to race and education. They were also organized "without a permit."

As for defecating...well, that's just a conservative sound bite one would hear via Fox and others to rile up the usual crewFunny though the TEA Party, less violent, more law-abiding was a threat to democracy…..

There were clearly anti semites at Tea Party rallies, not sure you want to go there.

Really and so they were NOT tossed out? ‘Cuz every time I saw “anti-Semitism” on-screen the TEA Partiers ran the dood/doodette off…or is this “anti-semitism” like the “Racism” of the TEA Party…And more to the point, the anti-Israel Progressives are allied with anti-Semites…would you care to show the anti-Semites the TEA Party is aligned with?

I’ll take that as “I was just talking out of my @rse.”, then. ‘Cuz I have no trouble pointing out that Code Pink and the anti-Israel Lobby have NO trouble being aligned with Islamists or Palestinians, who freely admit they wish to destroy the Jews. Achmydinnerjacket and Abbas spring to mind, first….

I guess J had to take out the trash or that the break time at Whataburger is over, because s/he is not providing any citations “showing” all those urban financiers and their allegiance to Yhwh and His Covenant…

Wall St. and Corporations in general are designed to focus on their business profits. Politicians enable businesses to maximize their profits by involving themselves in politics, because politicians have made it clear that they will take and seek money.

See Obama indeed. If he loses his re-election that makes a mark on how he chose to lead. And if people like Dodd and Frank, who were protected rather than persecuted, were confronted, it would make even more changes. If people really took the corruption seriously they would confront the corrupt. Of course a business tries to secure its own business, that's what a business does. A politician is supposed to provide oversight and correction when needed. What went wrong? The oversight and correction was ignored, and businesses were given a green light to manipulate.

Which of those two is violating their reason for existing? The politician. Put the fear of their future in politicians and the allure of easy campaign money won't work anymore. You have to make taking the money more of a risk than accepting it, and even if businesses offer, they won't take it.

At the same time, I do think there's a place for confronting the business side of things. But absence a direct political challenge to established politicians, it's all empty rhetoric. That Obama and the rest of the Democratic leadership can voice support for the OWS folks is the chief example of why the OWS folks are traitors to their own cause.

And I think the Tea Party functions best when it does the same sort of challenge to Republicans, so this isn't a partisan issue. We have to show the corrupt, we won't put up with their corruption.

Joey Kissinger, you are so right---all those New Yawk brokers (or academics,etc--) who came from Ivy league schools---they like started out in the ghetto, worked their way up from rags to riches. Homie Larry Summers.

We have been driven by PC Rules, many crafted in a well-meaning way, given past persecution of minorities to powerfully strive to ignore obvious facts of life

1. Fear we would hate Muslims following 9/11 caused our leaders to go into full PC mode. Including the idiot Bush, who started the whole "Religion of Peace" garbage. And all the well-meaning establishment pols and religious figures that lectured us that there was no such thing as Muslim jihad, the terrorists were simply misguided civilian criminals that hijacked a noble religions name.

2. Any who associated Islam with violence were told they were bigoted, hateful, ignorant and Islamophobic. And exactly like anti-semites.

3. The un-PC truth is that arriving, readily identifiable minorities that by skill or by collusion achieve dominance over a native majority in areas of economic wealth or political power never fare well in it the long haul. Or a minority with a strong association with con artistry, criminal violence, fleecing the locals - Gypsies, Tinkers, Chechens, etc. History shows this again and again, and Dominant Minorities are not confined to Jews being booted out of nations again and again. Plenty of examples of white colonialists, the Chinese, pureblood Spanish families that controlled most of the power and wealth of whole nations. How the Turks were booted.

4. In the great financial crisis of 2008, you had to willfully look away - look away hard - in order to not see the disproportionate role of Jewish bankers and execs involved in the mess - and as the "wise men" that were There to Help put enough tax money back into Wall Street through TARP to save the economy and financial system.Then you had to plug your ears at the peak of the crisis when Congress announced it had to take two days off from the crisis. Because so many of the financial saviors and witnesses of what had gone so wrong in their banks and insurance agencies and inside the Fed Governments oversight systems needed to leave to celebrate Rosh Hashanah.

5. Outside the far right, over the next 3 years a lot of rage has built up in the American people.A. No one was investigated or prosecuted. Gentile or Jew.B. While most Americans had big chunks of their stock, home value, income evaporate - the TARP and stimulus money made the same Elite people who nearly melted down our financial system better than whole..C. No pols were ever indicted for that - as the average American recognizes their kids future is at risk. 5 trillion in TARP and Stimulus gone to the connected people. Another 2 trillion lost in Neocon nation-building adventures.D. American Media has been unusually circumspect about finger-pointing who put out the poison financial products, who benefited, who in government facilitated it. But foreign media and certain experts that the OWS activists and others have read have named names and charted the American fiscal collapse by historical, bad decisions along the way starting in the Carter-Reagan years.

A communist, a Nazi, and a Jew are sitting in a coffee house. Suddenly, a genie appears, and offers to grant each of them one wish. The Nazi scowls and says, "I wish there were no Communists in the world!" The Communist says, "I wish there were no Nazis in the world!" The Jew says, "if you grant both of those wishes, I'll just take another cup of coffee."

They couldn't have done what they did or gotten any bailouts without collusion from their buddies in Washington. Hell, look at Obama's ties to Goldman Sachs, just for starters. He GM/Chrysler bailouts were really UAW bailouts.

While I have some sympathy with the occupiers, this is the stupidity of their position, that Washington, Obama, the feds, etc feet aren't being held to the fire. If they think there's corruption not, wait until they get their wishes for a communist state.

Luke, why do bankers bear a responsibility for the economic crisis? What did these bankers do, exactly?

Did they make loans that they shouldn't have?

Yes.

And did they make these loans purely on their own volition?

Yes. Barney Frank and the CRA people were pressuring them, but they (Fannie, Freddie, BAML, Countrywide, Citi, Lehman, Morgan, etc. etc.) ultimately made the decision to extend the loans. That they knew what they were doing is evidenced by the complicated financial structures they invented to cover and distribute the risk.

This of course doesn't alleviate the responsibility of Frank, Dodd, Bennett, and the rest for allowing and even encouraging it to happen.

Maguro said...A. No one was investigated or prosecuted. Gentile or Jew.

Tell me, C4, what crime was committed that you think should be prosecuted? Mispricing risk in your investments is not a crime, at least not yet.

What exactly are we supposed to be stringing these guys up for again?

================Knowingly concocting poison paper, fraudulent securities. Their connivance with bought Federal officials to hide overleveraging, and purport derivatives not well undestood by any were transparent and accurately rated. And mask actual risk from investors.For insider moves before and during the crisis to pump and dump their personal stock. For commodity and housing price manipulation. For collaboration with bought US officials - that allocated the trillions in money under TARP and the Obama Stimulus to go to the wealthy and connected.

Absolutely false. Everyone in the industry and in government knew that subprime loans were being packaged together with regular loans into motgage backed securities. Anyone remotely familiar with the real estate business knew that this was going on. The problem was that everyone thought that what they were doing was a swell idea.

I mean, who was buying all this "poison paper" that the evil banksters were putting together? Other banksters! And they all thought these MBSs were a great investment, which is why Bear Stearns went tits-up.

AFG said...Reminder: you can be against Israel, and indeed HATE Israel without being antisemetic.

=================Not according to the bootlickers of the Israel Lobby.

It's a neat trick if you can get away with it - but it only seems to work in the US that Israel is a "special exception" to the rule that you can criticize other foreign nations without being called a racist or bigot.

Dislike China? You are free to do so without the pack of self-righteous "guardians" of the imagined immunity China should be given based on past suffering screaming that you are a racist hating hater for slamming the noble Chinese people.

Dislike Saudi Arabia..you are free to do so. That doesn't trigger outrage that your criticism makes you a bigot against THAT Semite people or their bloody religion.

Slamming the snotty French does not make critics into instant bigots that need to be slimed, stifled, discredited, and "shamed".

Only Israel.

But the rest of the world has long moved past the idea that only Jews suffered, and only Jews must never be criticized.

The drift in America is now going in that direction as well..We have discarded most of the 60s and 70s taboos that feminists and black society pathologies must never be mentioned in a negative way. The PC speech codes were resisted. The attempts by Muslims to follow the Jew's path and try and make certain discussions about Islam forbidden and even criminal were fought against hard by most Americans.

The financial industry in this country is vastly too large and has become parasitic on the real economy, making little real economic contribution over and above what a much smaller and less lucrative industry could achieve. It is just a service industry dealing with very prosaic well established issues. Most of the so-called innovations in the industry are illusory in that they look an awful lot like scams over the long term. It is not an industry that requires great creative intelligence or any unusual intellectual ability beyond a strong desire to accumulate vast amounts of money.

The high salaries in the industry result in an appalling misappropriation of intellectual talent. At the moment, simply to maintain reasonable levels of intellectual ability in economically useful endeavors such as engineering and science it is necessary to import large numbers of academically gifted foreigners.

Both of these issues can be dealt with by drastically reigning in the remuneration available for participants in the financial industry. Despite the inchoate nature of the OWS protest, the protesters do actually get this point, unlike many of the posters on this thread. The financial industry isn’t doing us any good collectively and it taxes the real economy in multiple ways resulting in less productive economic activity and reduced global competiveness. Countries with much healthier real economies, such as Germany, have much smaller financial industries. These facts are not unrelated.

OT: I'm putting the Blue Star image to rest this week. For the uninformed :) The blue star banner was started in the early 40's to signify that the household had a member serving in the armed forces. At one point we were a 2 star household. My wife retired this month, thus we are retiring our last star.

PS: The Gold Star, represents a household that has lost a family memeber in combat, hence, Gold Star Mother....

(The Crypto Jew)Countries with much healthier real economies, such as Germany, have much smaller financial industries. These facts are not unrelated

I see reading comprehension or financuial current events aren’t your strong point:1) German banks received TARP funds, because they too were in danger from the collapse of the US Housing market, thru cross-holdings, as the GERMAN MINISTRY OF FINANCE acknowledged prior to TARP;2) Have you been keeping up with Greece, who do you think loaned Greece the money to be spendthrift with?-Answer: GERMANY.I see Cedarford, do you “Hate” Israel? Why, because it allows voting and Gay Rights?

God, I love this phrase. EVERY single leftish rally I've every attended and as someone who was a Democrat for 30+ years, I've attended a lot, I've heard this or a variant as follows:

"These people want to kill Jews/cheer dead troops/cut cracker babies throats/behead Christians... how can you support that?!"

"They don't speak for me! I'm not one of them!"

You're marching in the same parade. You're chanting the same slogans. You're making the same demands. But you're not one of them? How does that work?

At this point the conversation is usually terminated.

I've seen the Tea Party chuck the racists and the Larouchies out of their gatherings when they try to crash them. Hell, I've helped do it. But there's nothing so foul a leftwing march won't embrace it.

Joe said...Two strikingly foolish things.…………………………………..First, as you note, the housing financial crisis started in the U.S. not Germany, completely undercutting your first point. I said that they had an appropriately sized financial industry, not that they were immune to U.S. initiated financial scams.Second, Germany has plenty of money, certainly enough to bail out Greece. It understandably lacks any enthusiasm for the task.

(The Crypto Jew)Slamming the snotty French does not make critics into instant bigots that need to be slimed, stifled, discredited, and "shamed

And when the people who slam the snotty French ALSO discuss driving the French into the sea or abolishing France, or wiping it from the map, or draw maps showing Germany stretching from Poland to the English Channel get back to….also when the people slamming the snotty French deny the Second World War, and the Occupation of France, get back to me….your sad moral equivalence argument is a fail to anyone with a grasp of history.

(The Crypto Jew)First, as you note, the housing financial crisis started in the U.S. not Germany, completely undercutting your first point. I said that they had an appropriately sized financial industry, not that they were immune to U.S. initiated financial scams.Second, Germany has plenty of money, certainly enough to bail out Greece. It understandably lacks any enthusiasm for the task

Except you miss the point…their economy is NOT healthier…Merkel quickly quit gloating when informed that the German Eurobank System was going to crash too, taking Germany’s economy with it….

The problems the Euro banks are facing are basically the same ones that caused our financial crisis in 2008, except that instead of mispricing the risk on mortgage backed securities, they have mispriced the risk on sovriegn debt.

All this caused by excess liquidity created by central banks over the past few decades.

Harrogate wrote (11:55): What most of you do not seem to get (or more likely, don't want to get), is that what is needed now is a simple raising of awareness.... But yeah, keep prattling about "anti-Semitism." it is sickening.

It was only a matter of time before the Dems and their groupie trolls realiized that the envy-mongering, anti-semitic, parasitic layabouts known as OWS are among their core constituencies.

Consequently, it has become necessary to offer some fatuous explanation or another "for [OWS] not having a cogent set of alternatives" to whatever they're protesting. This doofus offers "creating awareness."

Awareness of what? That Democrat politicians are the major beneficiaries of Wall Street contributions and pay for them with taxpayer funded bailouts.

What is sickening, Harrogate, is that Dem politicians and their pet moonbats will exploit any conduct if it is likely to get them votes or to forward the liberal agenda.

I humbly await the day when the toofless bumpkin C-Fudd boycotts any use of that invention of Jews known as GOOGLE. But just like the troglodytes among the Zuccato Park crowd who urge you to GOOGLE "Jewish Bankers", he won't.

Toofless, idiotic troglodyte that he is.

He probably thinks Google's ownership of Blogger was also concocted in a secret yeshiva somewhere. When he isn't making use of it as the greatest device for disseminating his profligate idiocy and abundant bigotry.

(The Crypto Jew)If Republicanism was able to grow, expand, and dominate based on its racist Southern Strategy then why should OWS cast these lunatics out

*YAWN* the old racist Southerners became Republican spiel….Let’s see, “Sheets” Byrd-DEMOCRAT (even dropped “N!gger” within the last 10 years…Senator Fulbright, Bill Clinton’s mentor..against the Civil Rights Act…Albert Gore Senior, AlGore’s Papa..also voted against the Civil Rights Act…”Bull” Connor Democrat…and George Wallace…Democrat…of course you can point to all the PROMINENT Republicans with an equal pedigree, right Ritmo? Let’s see, more REPUBLICANS voted for the Civil Rights Act than Democrats…but Republicans relied upon Racist Southerners and are racists…you can tell this to your Occupy My Mom’s Basement Group and they may believe you, but like Cedarford you can only sell it to folks who have MYTH, rather than history

Other than Elle Homey's apparent insinuation that we must wait for Republicans to clean out the corruption on Wall Street (without regulating it, of course, and while just as likely to take their contributions), does anyone have any idea what he's prattling on about?

"That is, such reasonable people aren't antisemitic; they're just anti-Zionist. Is that what you're saying?"

Yes, that's what I would be saying to describe the phenomenon of hating the State of Israel. It's not anti-Semitic because Arabs are Semities. It's anti-Zionist because it is directed at the State of Israel, at least initially. Then it gets to anti-Jew very quickly, but anti-Semitic it isn't because pro-Arab it is and Arabs are Semites.

For years the JDL skated without call out of its use of the term anti-Semite to mean anti-Jew and/or anti-State of Israel.

Now, with Arabs in droves on US soil and everyone having to deal with that self-inflicted head-ache, the term anti-Semite doesn't cut it to describe disparaging Jews, Zionists and/or the State of Israel.

Even the Iranian hot-heads are careful to use accurate language condemning "the *Zionist* entity," rather than the *Semitic* entity, which would include their allies Hamas, Hizbollah, Syria and, as of recently, the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood.

So, if I hated Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Algeria, Iraq, Oman, Bahrain, Morocco, Tunisia, and 10 other states, it wouldn't be because I hated Arabs, but because I hated the idea that Arabs were entitled to nations of their own - a much more defensible way of looking at things. Is that right?

If you can't tell the difference between changing your views and changing your party affiliation, then there's nothing to explain, Joe.

But really, tell it to Trent Lott, ok? He'd surely sympathize. He'd also tell you how awesome Strom Thurmond would have been if his presidential run years earlier as a Southern racist Democrat had been successful. In 2002.

Way after his party had already made its principled stand on civil rights.